


Second Best

by Anonymous



Series: Take Your Fate And Make It Your Own [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Family, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of healing, Sequel, Tags to be added, brain empty no tags just found family, idk how to tag this story yet, road trips but in the worst way possible, this is like "recover from your trauma or else" the story, time is not a friendly god lads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29982696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When the main characters have told their tale, what happens to those on the side? Do they then take the spotlight, as is rightful? Do they fade out?Or: A sequel to This Wasn't Planned, But It'll Work Out where the background characters get their fifteen minutes of fame. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Honestly, who knows.__________Do not send to any CCs- this story isn't Weirdchamp Gross, I just don't like being known- if any CCs express discomfort with stories like this, it will be taken down immediately- No real names are used with the intention of rpf. These are characters, not real people. I cannot express how much I hate the rpf tags (it is a lot)- Ao3 fix ur real name tags problem broooo
Relationships: Corpse Husband & Karl Jacobs, Grayson | Purpled & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs & Ranboo, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Take Your Fate And Make It Your Own [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099079
Comments: 93
Kudos: 151
Collections: Anonymous





	1. prologue — 1

**Author's Note:**

> heya hiya
> 
> Don't fucking be weird on this story, I'll nerf you, this is your warning :D
> 
> Tw: discussion of mass death, illness, abandonment and anger, technic kidnapping

**[ -19 years ]**

Among things that can transcend Space and Time, letters are not on the list. They can travel to the future, in a sense (as everything does), but they cannot reach back and soothe the past.

A young girl stands in the woods, a ghost town behind her. She is far, far away from where L’Manburg has yet to be (where a home has yet to be). Where she is in time, a little goat boy has only just begun to exist. Where she is in time, it has been three years since her brother and his friends left without so much as a ‘goodbye’.

(And the kicker is that they took the cat with them, but not her)

She tugs at the strings of her worn-out jacket. It is red, the direct opposite of green. _Good_ , she thinks, _Green is a crappy color anyway_.

It scrunches up until it hits the edge of a smiling mask and messes up dirty-blonde hair. She pulls the strings until they can’t be pulled any further. As she looks at the empty town, she glares.

“‘S your fault.” She tells the air. “You left first, and all of your ‘special, best child’ energy sapped the life out of this place. You just had to save yourself, didn’t you?”

She huffs. “So it’s gone now. Are you ever gonna come back, or are you just gonna keep running away with your friends?”

No one answers her, not that she expected one.

Plague raged the town just months prior, ridding the one-lively community of every living soul. She was lucky to have been kicked out only days before the first report of sickness. Still, she finds herself staring at the eerily silent streets from the treeline.

“And they said we were going to be gods.” She scoffs.

The air warbles back at her, “I don’t see why you can’t still be one.”

She drops her jacket strings and spins around. Nothing.

“And now I’m going mad. Great. Maybe I’ll die out here with the rest of them. Doubt mister ‘high and mighty’ would care any.”

“But he might.” The air ripples. This time she catches it, a shine in the middle of nothing.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” The shine wavers and expands.

“No, you don’t.” She snaps, backing up. 

Out of the breach steps a being as tall as a small home. It wears a mask, as all gods do, but it bears no smile. Instead, it is made to look like a clock face. Ornate jewels hang from it’s ears and neck. They wrap around it’s arms and fingers. Shining cloth made of a color she can’t place covers the being’s body.

A god, she realizes.

“You know who I am, do you not?”

She nods.

“Where has your voice gone, child?”

“Nowhere.” She says stiffly.

“You say that your brother does not care. He has left you in a dying town with the weight of Ascension, yes?”

Simply, she nods.

“Child, I have seen where he is now. You are in the past, here. His letter will never reach you in his Line. Come with me, and you will see how he begs for forgiveness.”

She hesitates. “Why should I?”

Despite the mask on the god’s face, she can’t help but feel a shiver— he is surely grinning.

“I do not believe I asked for your permission on this.”

“You can’t take me anywhere. That’s kidnapping— which is illegal, by the way. I’ve read the books, man. I’m not making any sort of deal with fucking Time of all gods.” She steps back faster.

“But I did not offer one, and I am bored, dear child. You cannot outrun that which chooses you.”

“I don’t want to be ‘chosen’!”

“Your anger will do well for the Present.”

And she turns to run, but her shoes touch no ground. She turns to run, but she falls through the dirt and the stone and all of Mother Earth’s creation itself.

**[ the present? ]**

She blinks, and she is thrown into a nauseously whirling breach. Regardless, she keeps running, and running, and running.

And there is a clearing. She does not see the root sticking from the ground. Her foot hits it and she trips into the open. 

She could’ve sworn it was empty before she tripped. How else would she have missed six others who look just as lost as her?

The god is gone, but his message is clear— she isn’t going to escape wherever (whenever) she is (and her gut screams that she is not supposed to be here). 

Not any time soon, at least.

**[ the present. ]**


	2. prologue — 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faces, new and old, young and forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is UP happy 16th
> 
> TW: really dysfunctional family, implied abuse, mentions of death, indications of tyranny & cults

**[ - 2 months ]**

In every world there are regions and rules set in place. For instance, there is nothing requiring a child to be registered— forever leaving that child with one life and no way to communicate without being in person.

Most regions register, but there is one land famous for not doing so. Many have tried to escape, but few succeed. It is guarded heavily, and mercy rarely takes priority. Those outside of it seem to think it a myth, really. No place could be that horrible, surely.

(Escapees never end up with perfect, pretty lives. Names are abandoned and memories repressed, but muscles do not forget jumping from ledge to ledge or hiding until others pass)

Violence surely couldn’t be the norm for any region— towns, sure, but not full regions.

Still, a young girl risks her life to wiggle through broken walls and sneak by unnaturally strong guardsmen (bloodhounds, the children call them in whispers, when they are too young to understand that friendship is dangerous).

Her horns knock against the top of the tunnel she’s been digging for almost a month now. She’s never once been supervised in her life, and at the ripe old age of fourteen, she is a master of remaining inert no matter how many times she bumps her head.

It takes a painstakingly long twenty minutes for her to get to the end of the tunnel— to freedom. By the time she’s out, her front and back are covered with dirt, staining grey and black clothing brown. It is dark, though, and no one will see, so she does not care.

She pulls her bag out of the hole after her and swings it over her shoulders. Everything aches, but she is strong, so she keeps on.

The gate is far, far behind her, but she can never be too careful. 

The girl tugs a lever hidden next to her tunnel, and soon the tunnel is no more. The dirt ceiling collapses, and she salutes it.

“You were a good tunnel.” She whispers into the air, accent thick. She’ll have to fix that later.

2B2T may be just a myth to those outside of it, but the girl scampering away on goat’s legs knows that the myth includes the voice.

So she hums to herself as she runs away from a place that overrules the Hypixel hub (the place that houses the most direct entrances to it, really).

She runs far and fast for ten minutes before slowing down. She won’t truly be safe until she can make it to the water, but a short rest won’t hurt.

Digging through her back to find the only water bottle she could steal, the girl’s hand brushes a bit of paper. Right, she should probably move that away from the water so that it doesn’t mess it up.

Carefully, she pulls both the water and the paper out. The water is set to the side, momentarily forgotten as she looks at the bit of paper.

It's a photo from long before she was born. In it stands the woman that birthed her, the man that owns the home she's never in, a little blonde baby, a short blonde girl, and a slightly taller brunette with sunglasses. The girl and the brunette are young, but they don't look happy or youthful. Even the baby looks scared.

The girl doesn't know who the kids in the picture are, but she knows that they're related to her, somehow. She doesn't know if that means they're her siblings or if they were stolen children. Either way, they aren't here now.

She kind of wants to find them, but she knows she likely never will. They're probably dead, and 2B2T famously doesn't register. 

Carefully, she folds the picture into her pocket and ignores how her hair is the same shade as the brunette's, and how the little girl in the picture has the same goated legs as her. 

She grabs her water and takes a swig. She doesn't know when she'll be able to get more water, but she doesn't have any food and her head is achy from dehydration. She would rather not have made it this far just to shrivel up like a— she doesn't know what they're called, but she heard someone talk about dried— oh, dried _something_.

"Great, I've gone and forgotten the word, haven't I?" She mutters to herself.

“Fruit, perhaps?”

She’s on her feet in seconds, bag over her shoulder and bolting. She does not stop to see who spoke, focusing only on getting _away_.

(You do not sit and wait for answers when you are 2Tian; you run before you find out the hard way, and so run she does)

She runs and runs and runs, and she does not stop for fifteen minutes. Even then, her dead sprint only slows to a speeding jog.

When she finally stops, she’s crashed through the treeline into a broken-looking clearing. Branches are scattered along the open forest floor, and the girl decides that she doesn’ like it here. It is a good enough stopping point from whatever was behind her, though.

“I knew you’d be here, child.”

She whips around without a sound. Her eyes land on the fanciest person she’s ever seen in her short life. If she hadn’t promised herself to stop cursing, she might have sworn at the sight.

The person is extremely tall and wears a clock face. A mask, her mind supplies. They’re covered in shining jewels, and they look important. Still, she does not recognize them.

“Who are you?” She asks. Not very smart, as she should be running.

They seem amused and offended at the same time. “You must be joking.”

“I’m not.” Defensive attitude is one thing she knows she can rely on.

“Pitiful. You were not taught of me?”

“Why should I have been?”

She steps back. 

“Well, if you had learned, young one, maybe you would know what is to come.”

More backward steps are taken. “No one can know what comes next. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Then I suppose I am no one?”

Oh, she can feel the mistake she’s made. “Nice chat, but I’ve got to go now, buh-bye! Sorry, really, stranger-danger and all that, I’m sure you understand!”

“I’m afraid I don’t, my dear, and I’m not sure you do, either.”

**[ the present? ]**

She turns to run once more and finds herself in a completely different clearing. 

The sky is bright blue instead of gray, and there are no leaves on the trees. She takes a step backward and steps on a crisp, orange leaf. 

It’s supposed to be green and on the trees, she thinks absent-mindedly. Blood, she’s dizzy. She blinks and there are suddenly five other people in the clearing. A sixth comes running into the open seconds later.

_Oh_ , she thinks, _she is really, really not supposed to be here_.

**[ the present. ]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> Registration basically means like. Giving you respawn, enderchest, and comm tablet privileges btw!!! Without registration, you're basically just on hardcore! But without the enderchest. And the comm tablet. 
> 
> So anyway,

**Author's Note:**

> So it begins again.
> 
> EDIT: Drista is not a goddess!!! I know the mask thing may have confused some people!!! It will be explained later :)


End file.
